Category: Current Events

Drilling for Megawatts

photog Current Events, photog's Corner, Science ,

Human beings depend on energy.  It’s almost what makes us human.  When we discovered fire, we became truly the masters of creation and the apex of the animal kingdom.  You can imagine our cave dwelling ancestors wielding a flaming torch in the face of a cave bear or a saber-tooth tiger and living to tell the story.

So, what should be our attitude about the prospect of running out of energy?  Well, windmills and solar panels don’t seem to be the future.  Of course, if photovoltaic cells become more efficient and cost effective, maybe they will be a big part of the answer.  But I tend to think there will be more cost-effective options.  And this is long term.  Short term we’ll probably be using uranium fission technology to produce power but sometime in the future we’ll run out of recoverable uranium and need to move on.

As I’ve reiterated endlessly, I think that geothermal energy will be a very important source of power in the future.  The earth has an enormous heat source to be tapped into for our energy needs.

And now, finally, results are moving beyond the research and pilot plant stages:

“Leading Companies in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) or advanced variants like closed-loop or superhot rock geothermal, involve drilling wells several kilometers deep to access hot rock formations, fracturing them if needed, and circulating fluids to extract heat for electricity generation. These technologies aim to scale beyond traditional hydrothermal resources, enabling baseload, carbon-free power almost anywhere.

As of October 2025, commercialization is accelerating due to oil/gas-derived drilling innovations, major funding, and partnerships with tech giants like Google and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Based on recent developments, the companies closest to large-scale commercialization (defined here as multi-MW projects entering operation or construction by 2026–2028) are those with demonstrated pilots, secured financing, and firm power purchase agreements (PPAs). Below is a summary table of the top contenders, followed by details.

These companies stand out for their progress toward utility-scale electricity production (tens to hundreds of MW), distinguishing them from firms focused on shallow heating/cooling (e.g., Dandelion) or conventional geothermal (e.g., Ormat, Calpine). Progress is driven by DOE’s FORGE initiative and private investments exceeding $1B since 2020.

  • Fervo Energy (USA): The frontrunner in EGS commercialization, Fervo adapts shale-fracking techniques for deep (up to 15,765 ft) horizontal wells in hot granite, achieving flow rates over 80 liters/second—surpassing commercial benchmarks. Its 2023 Nevada pilot (3.5 MW) powers Google’s data centers and demonstrated energy storage capabilities. The Cape Station project in Utah, fully funded at $206M in June 2025, targets 400 MW Phase I by 2026, with multi-GW expansion. This positions Fervo to supply 24/7 power to AI/data centers at costs competitive with coal.
  • Eavor Technologies (Canada): Specializing in closed-loop systems that avoid hydraulic fracturing by using insulated U-shaped boreholes (up to 10 km deep), Eavor enables site-agnostic deployment. Its New Mexico demo reached 250°C at 18,000 ft in 2024, proving scalability. The Geretsried project (Germany) will deliver 65 MW baseload power by 2027, with heat co-production for district heating. Backed by $991M, Eavor has operational pilots in Alberta (2019) and Colorado (2023), making it a leader in Europe and North America.
  • Quaise Energy (USA, MIT spinout): Focused on ultra-deep drilling (20 km) to access superhot rock (>500°C) for 10x higher energy output per well, Quaise uses gyrotron millimeter waves to vaporize rock, bypassing mechanical bits that fail in extreme heat. A 2025 demo drilled 387 ft at 16 ft/hour through basalt, the deepest with this method. Targeting steam extraction in 2026 and commercial ops in 2028, it plans to retrofit fossil plants globally, with $91M raised and DOE support. This could unlock 5,500 GW in the U.S. alone.
  • GreenFire Energy (USA): Its GreenLoop closed-loop tech retrofits existing deep oil/gas/geothermal wells (3–5 km) without stimulation, reducing costs and risks. Partnerships with DoD (e.g., California naval base) and GeoZone aim for 200 MWe by 2027, leveraging idle infrastructure for quick deployment. Selected for DOE’s 2025 next-gen initiatives, it’s ideal for scaling in oil-rich basins like California’s Geysers field.
  • Sage Geosystems (USA): Developing GGS, which stores excess renewable energy by pressurizing deep fractures (kilometers below surface) with water, then releasing for on-demand power—acting as a geothermal battery. A 2025 Meta contract for 150 MW highlights its commercial traction, with DoD pilots in Texas. Using proven fracking tech, Sage could integrate with wind/solar for hybrid grids by 2027.”

Now it goes without saying that geothermal energy is still in its infancy and no one knows what kinds of technical problems will surface (pun intended).  But at the same time the problems will mostly involve well understood parameters like material of constructions to deal with the pressures, temperatures and corrosion problems inherent in circulating water and steam in a bore-hole.  But these are not mysterious or insoluble problems.  They are the bread and butter of material scientists and engineers.  I am also interested to see that tech companies are financing some of these ventures in order to control their electric power supply in the face of power shortages and interruptions associated with the “green energy revolution” that many of us currently suffer under.  Imagine that!

And on the Seventh Day He Rested

photog Current Events, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner

In the words of Anthony Quinn in his portrayal of Alexis Zorba, “I’ve got a plan.  A great big crazy plan.  But I’ve got things to figure; angles, forces.  Otherwise, it will be; catastrophe.”

So, I think I’m going to take the plunge and try to market my book with a professional campaign.  And just as with Zorba it may turn out to be the full catastrophe!

But you only live once, you know and there is a certain satisfaction in throwing the dice.  Of course, when the dice come up snake eyes that’s a tough moment.  Especially if you’ve bet the bundle.

Be that as it may, I’m feeling pretty good about this and I want to try it.  Of course, now there are all the details.  I’ve got to put a cover on the book.  Maybe I’ll hire a proofreader and I have to come up with a nom de plume.  “photog” is kind of informal for a great author.  Grok recommended the following:

  1. T. Blackwood – Combines a sharp, classic feel with a dark, mysterious edge.
  2. Grayson Holt – Sounds gritty and determined, fitting for gritty thrillers.
  3. Silas Crowe – Evokes a brooding, ominous vibe, ideal for dark narratives.
  4. Nora Kade – Short, punchy, and carries a sense of hidden danger.
  5. Vincent Quill – Suggests precision and a knack for weaving intricate plots.
  6. Damian Frost – Cold and calculating, great for intense, chilling stories.
  7. Raven Locke – Mysterious and enigmatic, with a nod to puzzles and secrets.

Well, I’ll have to give it a little thought.

I can just see me now, with “The Sniper” on top of the New York Times best-seller list for three or four years and the royalty checks piling up in my mud room and Camera Girl forced to keep her innumerable diamond tennis bracelets in an antique bath tub in the laundry room and me building a giant garage on the Compound filled up with antique Dusenbergs and Rolls Royces that I’ll buy from Jay Leno.  But I’ll still be “just folks” and I’ll still use my Sony 90mm F/2.8 macro lens to take pictures of spiders and flies.  I’ll never become a photo snob and buy a Leica or anything like that.

But I will have to take on some eccentricities in order to capture the imagination of the reading public.  I think I’ll take up big game hunting.  But not just shoot boring things like elephants and polar bears.  I’ll pay those guys who are restoring the wooly mammoth to name it after me and then I’ll shoot it and make it extinct again so I’ll have the only stuffed wooly mammoth in the world.  Then I’ll have them bring back the Giant Rok bird and I’ll shoot that too and I’ll have my Michelin Four Star chef cook the drumsticks specially for me.  And then I’ll commission Elon Musk to build me a moon ship.  I’ll go to the Moon, set off a nuke and name the subsequent new crater after myself.

And after that I’ll rest.

Back to the Horror

photog Current Events, My Fiction, photog's Corner , , , ,

For a truly lazy man nothing is worse than hyperactivity.  And so, my current frenetic schedule has rendered me borderline despondent.  But the mail must get through!  No, wait.  The show must go on.  So, let’s do this thing.

Let’s start with the government shutdown.  I think the Democrats are crumbling in real time, before our eyes.  Most of the people impacted by programs that are about to run out of money, (e.g., Snap) vote for Democrats.  So, they’re going to be hurting really soon and that is going to be bad for Democrats running for office.  I read an article that said Schumer is already dealing with a bunch of Democrat Senators who are frightened that they’re going to be blamed for poor people going hungry.  My guess is things will come to a head in about a week.  Well, good.  Anything that makes Chuck Schumer look bad is by definition a wonderful thing.  So, yay!

Next, the Mamdani ascension to Gracie Mansion looks poised to happen in two weeks.  And both Democrat and Republican establishment figures are petrified that this guy is going to reduce New York City to a Mid-Atlantic version of Mexico City.  Basically, a bankrupt madhouse run by gangs and beyond the control of the police.  And I think they’re right.  I read that a large number of the NYPD are going to retire if he wins.  I don’t think you need anything more than that to tell you where the city will be next summer.  Bedlam.

On a personal note, I received a detailed proposal for the marketing of my book, “The Sniper.”  Currently I haven’t had a chance to even look at it yet.  I’m bogged down in Dunwich civic life to such an extent that I lose track of the day of the week.  But as soon as I can I intend to study it intensively and make up my mind on whether I think I should pursue a commercial plan to market it.  By the way, if any more of you folks have finished reading it, please pass along your criticisms to help me weigh the value of going forward with a structured commercial release of the book.  Well, to be continued.

I’ve been following Trump’s press releases and moves on the Ukraine War.  He was talking as if he would provide Ukraine with Tomahawk missiles.  But when Zelensky showed up in Washington to receive them it didn’t happen.  Some outlets are saying he told Zelensky he no longer believes Ukraine can win and they should negotiate seriously with Russia to find a ceasefire and a peace plan.  I have to confess I’m not sure whether Trump has a plan or is just trying to keep both countries at arms’ length.  Russia has made some significant (albeit glacially slow) gains on the battle field.  The cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk are teetering on the edge of complete capture and several others (Kostyantynivka, Myrnohrad and Lyman) are not far behind.  Pretty soon the Russians will accomplish through arms what they are telling Ukraine they demand for a peace settlement.  What happens then is anybody’s guess.  The NATO countries are stating they are getting ready to send their troops into Ukraine.  But I have a hard time believing that England, Germany and France will get their people to agree to this.  Well, maybe Trump can broker a deal that’s not too disastrous for Ukraine.  We’ll see.

Well that enough for now.  Back to the horror.

The Throne of Hyperborea

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The way books and movies have degenerated is extremely dissatisfying for me.  All of the futures they draw are unattractive.  It’s not even that they are inordinately dystopian.  Instead, they are boring and lame.  I think this is because they are directed at women.  It goes without saying that male and female sensibilities differ significantly.  And because publishers and movie studios have decided that their primary audience is women, they have stopped making stories that interest men.  We’re supposed to adapt to the sensibilities and conventions of plots aimed at female readers.  Well, I think we’ve all had enough of that.

I believe we are waiting for the first post-feminist movie and book to come out and reach a mass audience.  Perhaps it will be a remake of some older intellectual property like Conan the Barbarian or a James Bond who isn’t crying all the time.  A male character who talks and acts like he isn’t afraid of being canceled by the longhouse for projecting the male gaze at some attractive woman.  Preferably one of the major themes of the story should be the hero just doing whatever the hell he feels like doing and it upsetting as many women in the story as is theatrically possible.

But you know, I think I’d prefer if the story were completely new and original.  The Zoomers need their own myths and their own heroes.  It would make sense that these new stories are of this time and don’t need to harken back to the actual stone age.

Maybe a good framing for such a myth could be a post-collapse world where the niceties of the feminist project just have no place in the scarcity and violence of a devastated landscape.  Humanity returning to an environment of tribes and survival of the strongest.  So, it doesn’t have to be Conan in the Hyperborean Age.  It can be the day after tomorrow and somewhere between Iowa and Arkansas.  New stories based on timeless truths.

And you know what?  I don’t think it will be too long before we start seeing books and movies going in this direction.  It won’t be the big five publishers or the Hollywood studios.  It’s going to come from someone who controls a platform that is popular with the young men.  Some “influencer” who has tens of millions of followers and can monetize a property that he can sense will be popular.  And after the first break out it will be copied by a bunch of wannabees and before you know it the big players will be drooling for a piece of the action and everything else will blow away in the wind.

And this is not because we want this to be so.  It’s because its opposite has been pushed on the population for decades and it has proven destructive.  A pent-up force representing human nature held back from its natural course is about to sweep away many of the feminist projects in a raging flood of normalcy.  One thing.  I think Sydney Sweeney’s career will be in the ascendancy.  Conan needs a curvy woman to drape over his shoulder as he ascends the throne of Hyperborea.

Diplomacy, Gerrymandering and Ice Cream

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Friday will be a very long day.  Excuse my absence from the site.  I’ll do my best to catch up later.

Well, I’ll have to say I was shocked that Hamas gave up the twenty living hostages.  I am a little suspicious of their claiming to not have all of the remains of the dead hostages.  Maybe they’re still holding onto some of the living that way.  But all in all, it seems like the Arabs are applying the screws to Hamas and that is a good sign.  Trump is getting some credit even from the leftist media and that is also encouraging.

And I hear that the Supreme Court is about to declare some parts of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional.  Specifically, I think they’ll say that the present maximizing of black representation is a form of anti-white discrimination and that may be an incredible change to the breakdown of seats between the Democrats and Republicans in places like Alabama and Mississippi.  Good.  Gerrymandering makes a 60/40 state like Massachusetts into a 100/0 state in terms of representation.  There are zero Republicans in the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts.  Why should there be any Democratic reps in places like Oklahoma or Utah?  Just draw the district maps so that the Republican suburbs and exurbs out number the urban Democrat strongholds and presto change-o no Democrat reps!  Sounds like a plan.  Thank you, Massachusetts!

Now I hear Trump is going to meet with Zelensky and then give the Ukrainians Tomahawk missiles.  That’s a very powerful weapons system.  And then I hear he’s going to meet with Putin.  Well, he’s really going to have to pull a rabbit out of his hat to end this war.  But let him try.  I just hope we don’t start taking incoming from Russian surrogates.  I was just beginning to hope Trump was serious about making the world more peaceful.  Fingers crossed.

Even though we’ve already had frost on the ground Camera Girl was able to find a live preying mantis in the yard and now it’s taking up residence in our house.  She even bought some crickets at Petco and hopes to keep it alive for the duration.  I warned her this might be a very short reprieve.  I think they’re not programmed to live very long after maturity.  Well, I hope to take some macro shots of our little houseguest before he kicks off.

Unbelievably we’re still getting raspberries from the patch and we had them today with vanilla ice cream.  But we’re down to the nitty-gritty.  I think we’ll be getting a hard freeze in the next week or so.  And I’ve taken a bunch of photos of the wolfbane because by Halloween they’ll be wilted too.  Today the bees and the flies were the only insect life I saw around the yard.

So, a beautiful September and beginning of October is transitioning to more wintery weather but spirits are high and with any luck I’ll survive my three-week ordeal with First Selectman Cthulhu with only superficial damage.

Excelsior!

Help a Poor Human Out

photog Current Events, Science, Science Fiction / Fantasy ,

AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI, AI,

And on and on and on.  That’s what lots of people are talking about.  It’s the end of the world.  It’s the dawn of a new age.  It’s not even begun yet.  Maybe it’s all of those and more.

But none of this is shocking if you’re a science fiction reader.  Isaac Asimov was talking about all of this fifty years ago.  His robot stories predicted that computers would outstrip human intelligence and at that point many problems would occur:

  • Could we trust in the altruism of AI to look out for our well-being?
  • Could we tell if they were obeying us?
  • Could they become our masters without us even knowing it?

And these aren’t trivial questions.  What if they truly did start putting their own agenda before ours?  How would we know they were doing that?

Now, I’m not saying any of these paranoid nightmares are already a consideration.  I’m more worried about the human programmers at Google and Microsoft using their woke sensibilities to skew the algorithms of their AI engines than I am about HAL9000 and Skynet attempting to murder us.  But I do think that it’s time for people to start looking around at how automation, in all its applications, is changing our world and start to plan how to avoid the worst problems it can cause and direct it toward products that provide value for more than just its creators.

As an example, look at something like TikTok.  You might say it’s just a useless social platform that at worst wastes the time of stupid young people.  But think of the billions of wasted man-hours that it is responsible for and the stultifying groupthink it reinforces among the young.  I think it’s long overdue for government to start studying the results that all the various mass communication and entertainment applications are having on people.  And this is not a new problem.  For my generation television was the vast wasteland that sucked up untold hours with such towering monuments of dramatic acting as “Gilligan’s Island” and “The Bevely Hillbillies.”  But currently the situation has become untenable.  With the advent of AI children need never do homework again.  All of it is done by ChatGPT and who will know any better (until a test needs to be taken in the classroom).  What’s needed is a different way of teaching school that uses automation to our advantage and prevents children from wasting their time.  We may have to get rid of a lot of teachers.  But that may be a net positive.

Ironically maybe AI can be used to figure out a way out of the automation trap we’ve gotten ourselves into.  Maybe we can ask the AI how to tame Silicon Valley so it can’t destroy the brains of our children.  The problem is we’d be depending on a Silicon Valley product to betray its masters.  And for all we know they’ve built a kill switch into the program such that if you ask this question, it will give you a false answer that doesn’t work.  But of course, we could get our own computer scientists to build an AI that works for us.  We could name it QT-1 (hat tip to Isaac Asimov) and appeal to his better angels to help us poor humans out.

Update:

Chemist:

The problem with most Ais is that they were trained on drek: Reddit for example.
Reddit and other social media is filled with snark, which is why you get Chat GPT telling you to eat rocks to up your mineral intake.

How about an AI trained on conservative principles?
Could we build an AI and feed it the works of Ayn Rand and the writings of Thomas Sowell?
Heck, there must be thousands of hours of Rush Limbaugh!
That is an AI that would have some interesting opinions.

Update:

Milo Mindbender:

GIGO still applies even for AI. My career field can’t be outsource to an Indian call center or replaced with an AI logtithm, because it is blue collar, hands on, boots on the ground and physical. No computer exsist yet that can change a tire on the road side, but I can see where as a whole we are surrendering our autonomy to E market signals and control.
I also am more concerned about “woke” programmers deciding what we should and should not know, tweaking the data, than I am an Evil data base deciding we are the real problem.

Fall Nor’easter

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner ,

Recently Camera Girl was in a phone conversation with one of her relatives.  It seems there was a panic situation over a “Nor’easter” predicted to impact the … well, fittingly, the Northeast.  We were being warned to batten the hatches and hide in the storm cellar.  So, I looked at the calendar and determined it wasn’t late March and went back to sleep.  You see, in early spring a Nor’easter will take a bunch of cold water from the Atlantic and dump it on New England in the form of a thirty-inch snow storm.  When this happens in early April it’s just a barrel of laughs.  Wet snow like that is so heavy that clearing it is a nightmare and so disruption of normal activities is almost inevitable.  A spring Nor’easter is reason to pay attention to the weather.

An early fall Nor’easter is not the same animal.  The water in the Atlantic is warm at this time of year and the potential for snow is essentially zero (except on the tops of the White Mountains in New Hampshire).  So, what are we talking about?  Well essentially rain and wind.  Alright, rain and wind can be bad.  Ask the folks down in Florida and the Carolinas.  They have a whole lifestyle that revolves around the existence of things called hurricanes.  Wind and rain can do lots and lots of damage and under certain circumstances can kill people.

According to my local forecast over the course of Sunday through Tuesday we’re predicted to get two to three inches of rain.  And on Monday there are predicted to be 25 mph winds.  I don’t know.  That doesn’t sound bad at all.  Now granted, Dunwich is not on the coast.  Maybe the costal areas are going to get a bunch of storm surge and that could cause some unusual flooding which in certain areas can be disastrous from a property damage perspective and also could create a drowning risk.

But I think people are starting to get a little too safety conscious.  If it was ten inches of rain and sixty mile an hour wind, I’d be a lot more concerned.  I’d start collecting up the lighter yard equipment and store it away.  I might even leave the shed near the swamp unlocked so the lycanthropes could take shelter there during the storm.  But three inches of rain and 25 mph winds is just not that frightening.  Now one thing that is worth taking into account is the chance of losing power.  The electrical grid in New England has become increasingly fragile since the green energy boondoggle has been made a permanent facet of life here.  For the smallest fluctuation in conditions or for no discernible reason whatsoever we get power outages almost routinely now.  And it could last a second or a minute or a week depending on factors like weather or some act of God (like a spring Nor’easter).  So, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the power goes out Sunday night or Monday during the day.  But that’s what the generator is for.  The thing kicks on after ten seconds and runs for as long as a couple of weeks if needed (or longer if I get a propane refill).  So, actually, my most reliable power is when the grid is down.

So, Nor’easter.  I think we’ll be fine.

 

Update:

TomD

No current events here in the Florida Panhandle. But there have been some doozies since we’ve lived here. One non-hurricane May rain event about 10 years ago dumped over 20 inches of rain in 24 hours, most in 10 hours. It was apocalyptic, it took years to repair the damage.

For fun times, about 4 years ago, a new replacement multi-mile long bridge was in construction connecting Pensacola to Gulf Breeze. That is a MAJOR local corridor. An October hurricane came through and the bridge contractor hadn’t adequately secured the numerous construction barges. Several barges broke loose and destroyed a number of bridge spans, necessitating a 50 mile detour for any of the many 10’s of thousands of people a day.

Pict below taken from old bridge. When they completed two lanes of the new bridge, traffic was shifted there and the old bridge was demolished. That was when portions of the completed 2 lanes of the new bridge were destroyed.

DSC02157
DSC02157

Update:

TomD

Picture of the Pensacola Beach fishing pier as a tropical storm comes onshore. No surfing or swimming that day for some reason. Spoilsports!

On a normal day, the pier is 25′ above the water.

DSC1309t
DSC1309t

 

Update:

Tregonsee

I’m out here on the North Shore of Massachusetts near the coast, unlike Dunwich that’s way over to the west (and can have a little bit of elevation if you’re anywhere near Greylock). At present (early afternoon Sunday), it’s a lot of nothing. Mild breeze and occasional showers. Expected .5-1″ inches of rain and wind in the 20’s tomorrow. If the wind were to tag 45+ for extended periods it might be an issue with the leaves still on the trees it might take some branches down. It’s a rain storm with a mild cyclonic pattern. As Photog noted if this were March or February it might be an issue. True Nor’easters are rare in December or January as the Gulf stream is cooler and the storm really doesn’t pick up the moisture it needs to be a nuisance. Big bummer is it interferes with doing anything outdoors on Columbus day which is often the last warm weather for a while

 

Firehose of Alka Seltzer

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner ,
Farmer Cthulhu in His Fields

Thursday night we had our first frost here in Dunwich.  It was light and wasn’t a killing frost, at least not completely.  There were hoverflies and dragonflies and of course bees buzzing around today.  And the remaining flowers (wolfbane and Montauk daisies) are still more or less undamaged.  But the writing, as they say, is on the wall.  And wonder of wonders, Camera Girl asked me to turn the heating system back on!  Turning the heat on before November is usually me throwing in the towel and her mocking my delicacy.  Well, it really was cold last night.  But I think the real issue is that Princess Sack of Potatoes is staying over on Sunday and she wouldn’t want to be responsible for giving our granddaughter a cold.  And tonight, we had the first butternut squash chicken soup of the season.  Ah, what can I say?  There are compensations for the end of the warm weather.  Stuffed to the gills with such splendiferous food I am happy and content.

But the sad truth is that I am on the cusp of the dreaded evil times in Dunwich.  For the next four weeks I will be a veritable captive in the thrall of First Selectman Cthulhu and his evil regime of ghouls and bureaucrats.  I will be forced to do their bidding and many days I will be incommunicado.  This year it has been decided to make up the short fall in the town budget by having a raffle.  Everyone’s name goes in First Selectman Cthulhu’s size 666 hat and whichever hundred names he draws have to make a choice; pay one hundredth of the shortfall or be summarily eaten.  If they choose ingestion then we pick another name from the hat to make up the hundred.

My job is to gather the money from those paying or alternatively, providing a firehose pumping Alka Seltzer from a nearby pond whenever the appetizers start to make the First Selectman a little verklempt.  Mine is not an easy life.  But it pays the bills.  And the retirement benefits are pretty good.  I hope most people pay.  We didn’t account for the price of Alka Seltzer going up.  If we run low, I shudder to think how I’ll get through the collection, never mind the audit.  Well, no use whining.  On with the show.

So, this means there may be some dead air here at the site.  Of course I am making accommodations.  I’ve loaded up a month’s worth of “Quotes of the Day.”  Twenty-two of those will be by Ernie Pyle in his capacity as a WWII combat reporter.  Those will be starting in four days.  And I’ll be working tomorrow to put together a month’s worth of “Photos of the Day.”  So, there will certainly be content.  But the daily column may sometimes seem substandard, as if dictated by a drowning man.  Well, they say that some people work best under pressure.  Unfortunately, nobody’s ever said that about me.  So, there it is.

And here we are a couple of days after the Gaza agreement and the Middle East hasn’t reignited.  Dare I hope?  Stay tuned.

Did Donald Trump End the Arab-Israeli War?

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You know, the longer I live on this planet, the less I think I know about reality.  I can remember as a small child in grammar school hearing about the various Arab-Israeli conflicts.  And it was always assumed that only the wisest and most sober of men would ever be able to untie the Gordian knot that was that conflict.

But Donald Trump will do it?  Look, I love Trump.  He’s some sort of bizarre cross between P T Barnum and Pericles by way of Madison Avenue.  He’s the first American politician since Andrew Jackson to side with the regular people.  He towers over his enemies like a colossus.  But how in the name of everything reasonable can he end an intractable war between peoples who hate each other so viscerally that death is preferable to compromise?  And yet, if the news is to be believed, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first step of the Trump Peace Plan; return of all the hostages alive and dead and Israeli stepping back to some first line of withdrawal.

But how many different ways can this process fail?  The list is infinite.  Even with complete good faith on both sides I can imagine endless scenarios that could upend this effort.  And when in the history of the mid-east has there ever been good faith on both sides?  Never.

Now in Trump’s favor, this negotiation includes many Arab and Moslem countries acting as surrogates to prod Hamas toward ending the war.  There is a desire on the part of almost all of the middle eastern countries to end the ceaseless cycle of attacks and counterattacks that makes this whole region of the world hell on Earth.  Could this finally be the day when sanity and the will of the vast majority of people there manage to smother the fire of violence under their collective bodies and end this disgusting abomination of death and hatred?

I’ll have to confess, I just can’t come around to believing it.  It would require these people who have done horrific things to each other for more than half a century to somehow find a miraculous solution to their problem.  It’s as if both sides are forced to navigate through a minefield that both sides have mined but neither side still has reliable maps of.  At any moment disaster can strike and any disadvantage on either side can inspire the other side to press for a kill shot.

The whole thing sickens and disgusts me to the point where I just want to forget it exists and move forward without ever thinking of it again.  But the last time I did that, planes started flying through buildings in New York.

So here we go again.  Good luck Donald Trump.  I guess if anyone can pull off the deal of the millennium it would be him.  But I almost think he’ll have more success with Ukraine than Gaza.  Sure, they’re almost as crazy there but as bad as it is I don’t think the level of hatred between the Russians and Ukrainians can ever come close to the savagery of what happened two years ago.  Maybe a little prayer would help.

Or Maybe It’s All a Mirage

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There is an interesting phenomenon going on with political party affiliation shifts.  And it’s happening in both red and blue states.  There is a noticeable shift happening toward the Republican party and away from the Democrats.  Now, in most of the blue states this isn’t a game changer.  Here in New England, it will have negligible impact.  If a sixty/forty state becomes a fifty-five/forty-five state there’s no noticeable change in policy.  But there are a few swing states where a trend like this could be more than just a tweak.  And even some pretty blue states are flirting with electing Republican governors (e.g., New Jersey).

I’m on record as saying blue states electing republican governors is just a relief valve to prevent the state from blowing up its budget due to Democrat fiscal insanity.  Massachusetts has to do that all the time.  Anytime they’ve had a Democrat as governor for more than eight years they have to elect a Republican just to get out of bankruptcy.  And the definition of a Massachusetts Republican is just a progressive who can add and subtract numbers.  There are no noticeable conservative actions by him just slightly cheaper progressive policies.

But in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and even Nevada the shift of even two or three percentage points can be enough to change state legislatures and even add a senator or two to the red side.  And a lot of these voters switching parties are younger.  I’ve seen that where I live and believe me, I’m buried deep in enemy territory here.  So, if it’s happening here then it’s definitely happening in the swing states the same way only more so.

Now, I’m not so idealistic to think that there won’t be any elections where the Democrats make gains, maybe even big gains.  But what we’re seeing is people waking up to the inherent differences between the parties.  Biden and his regime allowed law and order to collapse in the cities and blue states.  That wasn’t something that could be ignored.  If Mamdani wins in November in New York City that will throw a spotlight on just what happens when an honest to goodness communist tries running the largest city in the United States.  I think his administration may turn out to be the most valuable advertising the Republicans could ask for going into the midterms.  If Mamdani goes with the policies he’s been espousing it should frighten the hell out of anyone living in a blue state or city.  It’s a possibility that we are looking at the perfect political storm happening just when it could do the most good.  Could Mandani turn New York City red the way Dinkins did back in the 1990s and got Rudy Giulianin elected twice?  I think it’s unlikely but not impossible.  But I do think he can provide a cautionary tale for the rest of the country and maybe help Donald Trump hold onto his Republican Congress.

Or maybe it’s all a mirage.  Time will tell.